Empirical Beliefs & Hypothesis; Do they terminate in some beliefs that need no further justification, go on infinitely - on belief being justified by other that then need justification, or circle back upon itself in some way - constituting a sort of basic belief system in no more need of justification?
Immortalist
evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent
on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses.
Empirical data are data that are produced by experiment or
observation.
"Empirical" as an adjective or adverb is used in conjunction with both
the natural and social sciences, and refers to the use of working
hypotheses that are testable using observation or experiment. In this
sense of the word, scientific statements are subject to and derived
from our experiences or observations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empirical
1. Suppose, that there are basic empirical beliefs, that is, emperical
beliefs (a) which are epistemically justified, and (b) whose
justification does not depend on that of any further emperical
beliefs.
2. For a belief to be episemically justified requires that there be a
reason why it is likely to be true.
3. A belief is justified for a person only if he is in cognitive
possession of such a reason.
4. A person is in cognitive possession of such a reason only if he
believes with justification the premises from which it follows that
the belief is likely to be true.
5. The premises of such a justifying argument must include at least
one empirical premise.
6. So, the justification of a supposed basic empirical belief depends
on the justification of at least one other empirical belief,
contradicting 1.
7. So, there can be no basic empirical beliefs.
This seems to eliminate the possibility of emperical justification of
any and all emperical beliefs. But it can lead to this untruthfullness
of human beliefs in three ways which deal with the apparent "regress"
of one belief depending upon another which depends upon another and so
on:
If the regress of emperical justification does not terminate in basic
emperical beliefs, then it must either:
(1) terminate in unjustified beleifs
(2) go on infinitely (without circularity)
(3) circle back upon itself in some way.
If there is no way to justify emperical beliefs apart from an appeal
to other justified emperical beliefs, and if an infinite sequence of
distinct justified beliefs is ruled out, then the presumably finite
system of justified emperical beliefs can only be justified from
within, by birtue of the relations of its component beliefs to each
other. Coherence theory is of the variey (3) seemingly circular if
veiwed in an linear fasion, merely indicated by whatever
"property" (or complex of properties) is requisite for the
justification of such a system of beliefs. Degrees of justification
emerge out of the relations of groups of beliefs.
Publius
806e-dc4...@v39g2000pro.googlegroups.com:
The argument goes astray with #4. If I perceive a red apple, then I believe
the apple perceived is red. That belief is not a conclusion derived from
any premises, but from the percept itself. Empirical beliefs are self-
justifying; I cannot doubt that I am perceiving something red in the shape
of an apple. I may well have doubts about what causes that percept, but I
cannot doubt that I have it. What may be causing it is another question.
nada
used for!
Sir Frederick
wrote:
What if you know you have a brain tumor that is causing you to
perceive things as red, though you "believe" them to be green?
Publius
news:elcra45fl8fgifln6...@4ax.com:
>>The argument goes astray with #4. If I perceive a red apple, then I
>>believe the apple perceived is red. That belief is not a conclusion
>>derived from any premises, but from the percept itself. Empirical
>>beliefs are self- justifying; I cannot doubt that I am perceiving
>>something red in the shape of an apple. I may well have doubts about
>>what causes that percept, but I cannot doubt that I have it. What may
>>be causing it is another question.
> What if you know you have a brain tumor that is causing you to
> perceive things as red, though you "believe" them to be green?
I still cannot doubt that I am perceiving a red apple. Believing I am now
perceiving red, and also that what I now I perceive as red might appear as
green in other circumstances, are two different beliefs.
Both are empirical beliefs, however --- the second resting on my memory of
previous percepts.
nada
nada
John Larkin
So what you need is a system of observations and theories that all
hang together. So far, in the physical sciences, the Standard Model
does that very well, and nothing else does, so we go with that.
Sounds reasonable to me.
John
nada
OK
John Popelish
> So what you need is a system of observations and theories that all
> hang together. So far, in the physical sciences, the Standard Model
> does that very well, and nothing else does, so we go with that.
>
> Sounds reasonable to me.
Subject to improvement upon confirmed new observations that
were not predicted by the standard model, of course.
--
Regards,
John Popelish
John Larkin
wrote:
Sure, but there's no reason to get into a philosophical snit because
of some perceived failing of logic. If a system of theories works, and
there are no glaring exceptions, that's probably about the way the
universe is built.
Gravity is still a problem, in the sense that quantum mechanics can't
explain it. But that's not a contradiction of QM, it just something
that's left out, sort of orthogonal.
John
John Larkin
<m.pu...@nospam.comcast.net> wrote:
What causes "red" is the predominant wavelength of the light that
bounces off the apple. That can be measured and quantified, if there's
any doubt.
There's nothing subjective about "red."
You'll never get anything done if you keep getting tangled up in
fuzziness.
John
John Popelish
> What causes "red" is the predominant wavelength of the light that
> bounces off the apple. That can be measured and quantified, if there's
> any doubt.
>
> There's nothing subjective about "red."
(snip)
The experience of red is what is subjective. There is no
way to know that anyone else experiences red exactly as you
do. I suspect that most people experience red about like I
do, but I also suspect there are some interesting (various
flavors of colorblindness) and even some extreme exceptions,
especially in those who experience synesthesia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
--
Regards,
John Popelish
DB
Or, an assumption there is a GUT.
Publius
news:214sa4h2t11ubunos...@4ax.com:
>>The argument goes astray with #4. If I perceive a red apple, then I
>>believe the apple perceived is red. That belief is not a conclusion
>>derived from any premises, but from the percept itself. Empirical
>>beliefs are self- justifying; I cannot doubt that I am perceiving
>>something red in the shape of an apple. I may well have doubts about
>>what causes that percept, but I cannot doubt that I have it. What may
>>be causing it is another question.
>
> What causes "red" is the predominant wavelength of the light that
> bounces off the apple. That can be measured and quantified, if there's
> any doubt.
>
> There's nothing subjective about "red."
What is subjective is the impression experienced by the observer when
perceiving light of that wavelength.
> You'll never get anything done if you keep getting tangled up in
> fuzziness.
You also won't get much done if you blindly adopt gratuitous assumptions.
Publius
news:2LCdncPkf4WMiDPV...@comcast.com:
>> There's nothing subjective about "red."
> (snip)
>
> The experience of red is what is subjective. There is no
> way to know that anyone else experiences red exactly as you
> do. I suspect that most people experience red about like I
> do, but I also suspect there are some interesting (various
> flavors of colorblindness) and even some extreme exceptions,
> especially in those who experience synesthesia.
Quite correct, although we really have no basis for an assumption that
others' experience of red is anything like ours. It is an assumption of
convenience only, and harmless for the most part.
There is even some empirical evidence that different persons experience red
differently. The gene for the red photopigment is carried on the X
chromosome. There are two variants of this pigment, due two variants of
that gene, which respond optimally to slightly different wavelengths. Men
have only one X, so they carry one version of this gene or the other (and
presumably perceive the same frequency differenly). Women, however, have
two X's, and so may possess both versions of the red pigment, making them
quadchromats. Their color perception may be quite different from us
"normal" trichromats.
Green is also carried on the X. but there is only one version of that
pigment.
John Larkin
wrote:
>John Larkin wrote:
>
>> What causes "red" is the predominant wavelength of the light that
>> bounces off the apple. That can be measured and quantified, if there's
>> any doubt.
>>
>> There's nothing subjective about "red."
>(snip)
>
>The experience of red is what is subjective. There is no
>way to know that anyone else experiences red exactly as you
>do.
That's fuzzy. We can agree on whether any given apple is red or green,
and we can consult a spectrograph if there's a dispute.
>I suspect that most people experience red about like I
>do,
Yes, but that may be completely meaningless.
John Larkin
That would be nice, but we really don't need it. We can use QM in its
domain, and GR in its, and 99.9% of the time we can accurately predict
outcomes. I think there are only a few situations where the
orthogonality breaks down, like in the guts of neutron stars and such,
but that hardly keeps us from doing electronic design.
John
nada
John Popelish
> On Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:27:30 -0400, John Popelish <jpop...@rica.net>
> wrote:
>
>> John Larkin wrote:
>>
>>> What causes "red" is the predominant wavelength of the light that
>>> bounces off the apple. That can be measured and quantified, if there's
>>> any doubt.
>>>
>>> There's nothing subjective about "red."
>> (snip)
>>
>> The experience of red is what is subjective. There is no
>> way to know that anyone else experiences red exactly as you
>> do.
>
> That's fuzzy. We can agree on whether any given apple is red or green,
> and we can consult a spectrograph if there's a dispute.
Yes, after we survey enough eye responses to define a
generic (if somewhat arbitrary) standard definition of red.
I am just saying that any particular person may not agree,
subjectively with our standard.
>> I suspect that most people experience red about like I
>> do,
>
> Yes, but that may be completely meaningless.
If by "completely meaningless", you mean difficult to
understand, intellectually and mechanistically, I agree.
Another somewhat similarly "completely meaningless" aspect
is whether specific hues produce innate or learned emotional
or otherwise biochemical responses.
--
Regards,
John Popelish
zinnic
> John Popelish <jpopel...@rica.net> wrote innews:2LCdncPkf4WMiDPV...@comcast.com:
I do not believe that there are genes for colors. There are multiple
genes that control electrochemical neuronal patterns responding to
an eye cell's reaction to impingement of light frequencies. There is
no reason for different brains to respond identically to signals from
eye cells. That billions of neurons make identical connections in
every brain is IMO impossible. A specific stimulation induces a
neurochemical pattern that is unique to that stimulation and to the
connective pattern of a specific brain. Repetition of the same
stimulus and its corresponding neuronal pattern, cements the two into
recognition.
That cemented neuronal pattern of one brain function is not
necessarily identical to the cemented neuronal pattern of a different
brain.
Thus one brain may recognise red with a neurological pattern that
difffers from that recognised as red by a second brain. The ony
requirement is that each brain remains consistent in the recognition
of its neuronal pattern code. No is no in English, Nien is nein in
German.. The Morse and Semaphor codes are totally different
patterns, yet they can signify the same.
Zinnic
Rod Speed
You're wrong. Color blindness is indeed genetic.
> There are multiple genes that control electrochemical neuronal patterns
> responding to an eye cell's reaction to impingement of light frequencies. There
> is no reason for different brains to respond identically to signals from eye cells.
Have fun explaining genetic color blindness.
Publius
news:2ecce165-5bbe-45d5...@8g2000hse.googlegroups.com:
>> There is even some empirical evidence that different persons
>> experience red differently. The gene for the red photopigment is carried
>> on the X chromosome. There are two variants of this pigment, due to two
>> variants of that gene, which respond optimally to slightly different
>> wavelengths. Men have only one X, so they carry one version of this gene
>> or the other (and presumably perceive the same frequency differenly).
>> Women, however, have two X's, and so may possess both versions of the
>> red pigment, making them quadchromats. Their color perception may be
>> quite different from us "normal" trichromats.
>>
>> Green is also carried on the X. but there is only one version of that
>> pigment.
>
> I do not believe that there are genes for colors.
Correct. There are genes for the 3 chomoreceptor pigments, however, which
respond to different portions of the bandwidth.
> There are multiple
> genes that control electrochemical neuronal patterns responding to
> an eye cell's reaction to impingement of light frequencies. There is
> no reason for different brains to respond identically to signals from
> eye cells.
Correct.
> That billions of neurons make identical connections in
> every brain is IMO impossible. A specific stimulation induces a
> neurochemical pattern that is unique to that stimulation and to the
> connective pattern of a specific brain. Repetition of the same
> stimulus and its corresponding neuronal pattern, cements the two into
> recognition.
Yep.
> That cemented neuronal pattern of one brain function is not
> necessarily identical to the cemented neuronal pattern of a different
> brain.
Yep.
> Thus one brain may recognise red with a neurological pattern that
> difffers from that recognised as red by a second brain. The ony
> requirement is that each brain remains consistent in the recognition
> of its neuronal pattern code. No is no in English, Nien is nein in
> German.. The Morse and Semaphor codes are totally different
> patterns, yet they can signify the same.
Right on.
Sevenhundred Elves
I beg to differ. Colour perception is not merely an act of measuring
wavelengths. Take a look at this interesting optical illusion:
http://www.grand-illusions.com/opticalillusions/square/
Not only colour, but even our perception of lightness/darkness is
influenced by circumstances surrounding the observation:
http://www.grand-illusions.com/opticalillusions/chequer_board/
And here's a peculiar one:
http://www.grand-illusions.com/opticalillusions/disappearing_colours/
>
>You'll never get anything done if you keep getting tangled up in
>fuzziness.
>
>John
It's a fuzzy world we live in...
S.
ZerkonX
> A central concept in science and the scientific method is that all
> evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on
> evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses.
.. and results that are able to be duplicated. Consensus.
Here is the beginning, I do believe.
It is in the consensus, not the evidence itself.
"Science is a social disease"
jmfbahciv
It looks more like determined stupidity is the accepted social
disease of the decade.
/BAH
zinnic
You totally miss my point! Color blindness usually has to do with the
inheritance of a gene that produces an abnormality in the
photoreceptor pigments in the cone cells of the eye. Read my post
again and you will see that I discuss responses of brain cells to
whatever signals are carried from the eye by the optic nerve (axons of
ganglion cells)!
>
> > That billions of neurons make identical connections in
> > every brain is IMO impossible. A specific stimulation induces a
> > neurochemical pattern that is unique to that stimulation and to the
> > connective pattern of a specific brain. Repetition of the same
> > stimulus and its corresponding neuronal pattern, cements the two into
> > recognition.
> > That cemented neuronal pattern of one brain function is not
> > necessarily identical to the cemented neuronal pattern of a different
> > brain.
> > Thus one brain may recognise red with a neurological pattern that
> > difffers from that recognised as red by a second brain. The ony
> > requirement is that each brain remains consistent in the recognition
> > of its neuronal pattern code. No is no in English, Nien is nein in
> > German.. The Morse and Semaphor codes are totally different
> > patterns, yet they can signify the same.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
jjs
> There are multiple genes that control electrochemical neuronal patterns
> responding to an eye cell's reaction to impingement of light frequencies.
> There
> is no reason for different brains to respond identically to signals from
> eye cells.
One cannot simply declare that because there's a whole lot of neurons
involved in a complex pattern that two individuals' brains systems must be
exactly alike in order to perceive the same thing. It suffices that they are
alike enough. Concerns regarding the emotional reaction to a color (red) are
of a different issue in a different system. Unless you are color blind, you
see the same red I do.
zinnic
> (attributes lost, sorry)
>
> > There are multiple genes that control electrochemical neuronal patterns
> > responding to an eye cell's reaction to impingement of light frequencies.
> > There
> > is no reason for different brains to respond identically to signals from
> > eye cells.
>
> One cannot simply declare that because there's a whole lot of neurons
> involved in a complex pattern that two individuals' brains systems must be
> exactly alike in order to perceive the same thing. It suffices that they are
> alike enough.
That is the point I was making!
>Concerns regarding the emotional reaction to a color (red) are
> of a different issue in a different system.
>Unless you are color blind, you see the same red I do.
Only in a consensual sense! :)
John Larkin
wrote:
That's testable, and probably true. It's been shown that babies are
born programmed with preferences for pretty faces, and fear of
heights, stuff like that. Cows who have never seen a wolf react
dramatically to a painting of a wolf; the painting can be abstracted
to a small number of lines at the correct angles, and they react the
same.
I suppose "meaningless" is another way to say as "untestable."
John
John Larkin
<m.pu...@nospam.comcast.net> wrote:
>John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in
>news:214sa4h2t11ubunos...@4ax.com:
>
>>>The argument goes astray with #4. If I perceive a red apple, then I
>>>believe the apple perceived is red. That belief is not a conclusion
>>>derived from any premises, but from the percept itself. Empirical
>>>beliefs are self- justifying; I cannot doubt that I am perceiving
>>>something red in the shape of an apple. I may well have doubts about
>>>what causes that percept, but I cannot doubt that I have it. What may
>>>be causing it is another question.
>>
>> What causes "red" is the predominant wavelength of the light that
>> bounces off the apple. That can be measured and quantified, if there's
>> any doubt.
>>
>> There's nothing subjective about "red."
>
>What is subjective is the impression experienced by the observer when
>perceiving light of that wavelength.
You can't know that, and it can't be tested, so why worry about it?
Eyeball spectral response, color recognition, and color blindness can
be simulated and quantified.
>
>> You'll never get anything done if you keep getting tangled up in
>> fuzziness.
>
>You also won't get much done if you blindly adopt gratuitous assumptions.
I get a lot done, partly by being pragmatic about reality.
John
nada
Publius
>>What is subjective is the impression experienced by the observer when
>>perceiving light of that wavelength.
>
> You can't know that, and it can't be tested, so why worry about it?
We can't know that it is subjective? Of course we can. You just explained
why we can know that (it can't be tested). We should worry about it because
those possible differences in perception may explain some differences in
behavior.
John Larkin
What's your day job?
John
Rod Speed
>>>> John Popelish <jpopel...@rica.net> wrote
>>>> innews:2LCdncPkf4WMiDPV...@comcast.com
>>>>>> There's nothing subjective about "red."
>>>>> The experience of red is what is subjective. There is no
Nope, you missed mine!!!
> Color blindness usually has to do with the inheritance of a gene that produces
> an abnormality in the photoreceptor pigments in the cone cells of the eye.
Irrelevant to your stupid claim that has blown up in your face and covered you with black stuff, again.
> Read my post again
It wasnt even worth reading the first time, its just mindless silly stuff.
> and you will see that I discuss responses of brain cells to whatever signals
> are carried from the eye by the optic nerve (axons of ganglion cells)!
Like hell you did in that first steaming turd of yours I commented on.
jjs
"zinnic" <zeen...@gate.net> wrote in message
news:101f4e12-fddd-44cb...@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com...
On Aug 22, 9:53 am, "jjs" <n...@droffats.ten> wrote:
>> (attributes lost, sorry)
Just affirming the previous poster.
>>Unless you are color blind, you see the same red I do.
> Only in a consensual sense! :)
I'm game!
nada
> "zinnic" <zeenr...@gate.net> wrote in message
Immortalist
> Immortalist <reanimater_2...@yahoo.com> wrote in news:89ed31b5-4cf0-49cc-
> 806e-dc4d6d752...@v39g2000pro.googlegroups.com:
>
>
>
> > A central concept in science and the scientific method is that all
> > evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent
> > on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses.
>
> The argument goes astray with #4. If I perceive a red apple, then I believe
> the apple perceived is red. That belief is not a conclusion derived from
> any premises, but from the percept itself. Empirical beliefs are self-
> justifying; I cannot doubt that I am perceiving something red in the shape
> of an apple. I may well have doubts about what causes that percept, but I
> cannot doubt that I have it. What may be causing it is another question.
There is a seemingly absurd way to doubt the "givenness" of sense
data;
Dr. Know & the Braino Helmet
Imagime that a superscientist invents machine--we shall call it a
"braino," - that enables him to produce hallucianations in certain
subjects . The machine operates by influencing the brain of a subject
who wears a special cap, called a "braino cap." when the braino cap is
placed on a subject's head, the operator of the braino can affect his
brain so as to produce any hallucination in the subject that the
operator wishes. The braino is a hallucination-producing machine. The
hallucinations produced by it may be as incomplete, systematic, and
coherent as the operator of the branio desires to make them.
The present argument starts from the premise that the braino is a
logical possibility, and consequently that there should be
hallucinations that are coherent, complete, and systematic in every
way. From the premise of logical possibility, we conclude that we in
fact have no way of telling whether or not we are hallucinating.
If the braino is a logical possibility, then how can we tell that
hallucinations are not in fact so hard to detect? On the contrary, we
may suffer hallucinations that we cannot detect. If it is logically
possible that hallucinations should be coherent, complete, and
systematic in every way, then there is no way of detecting at any
moment that we are not suffering from a hallucionation.
How we can tell that we are not hallucinating. The braino argument is
intended to establish that we can never tell this, even if we can
sometimes tell that we are hallucinating. Consider some perceptual
belief that you would maintain does not from hallucinations. what
experiences guarantee this? Indeed, what experiences provide you with
any evidence of it?
Notice that whatever experience you indicate, the braino argument will
be quite sufficient to prove that such an experience is no guarantee
against hallucianation. All we need do is imagine that you have,
unknown to yourself, the braino cap on your head. the operator of the
braino is producing the very experiences you claim guarantee that you
are not hallucinating.
Imagine that all people are controlled by the braino and that the
machine is run by some evil being, Dr. Know, who plots to keep us
completely in error through hallucinations. Dr. Know does not wish to
be detected, so he supplies hallucinations that are coherent,
complete, and systematic. Indeed, the hallucinations he produced in us
are a PERFECT COUNTERFEIT OF REALITY.
Our experiences fulfill our expectations and contain no more surprises
than we would expect from reality. But is it not reality we
experience; our perceptual beliefs about the world are quite mistaken,
for the source of our experiences is a mere machine, the braino, which
creates hallutionations. In such a predicament we might have just the
sort of perceptual beliefs we now have, based on experiences exactly
similar to those we now have. But our perceptual beliefs would be
altogether false.
The imagined situation is exactly similar to ours with respect to the
reasons or evidence we would have for our perceptual beliefs.
Experience is virtually the same in both cases. Consequently, if we
lack knowledge in one situation, we must surely lack it in the other.
Obviously, we lack knowledge when we are controlled by the braino, for
then our perceptual beliefs are false. Hence, we also lack knowledge
in our present situation. More precisely, our perceptual beliefs fail
to constitute knowledge in either case.
We believe that we are not controlled by such a machine, and if we are
fortunate in this belief, then no doubt many of our perceptual beliefs
are true. It is, however, good fortune and not good evidence that we
should thank for correctness of these beliefs.
We are just lucky if there is no Dr. Know controlling us with a
braino; and from that good fortune may result the further good fortune
that most of our perceptual beliefs are true. it is just a matter of
luck, however, and nothing epistemologically more glorious than that.
If a belief is true as a result of luck, then it is a lucky guess--not
knowledge.
Adapted from Keith Lehrer
Philosophical Problems and Arguments: An Introduction
by James W. Cornman, Keith Lehrer, George Sotiros Pappas
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0872201244/
http://books.google.com/books?id=cRHegYZgyfUC&printsec=frontcover
Immortalist
> Another idiot who doesn't know what the subject line is supposed to be
> used for!
The Problem of the Criterion
A general argument against the invocation of any standard for
knowledge has come to be known as "the problem of the criterion." As
we have just seen, there have been disputes about standards of
knowledge. Some are about particular kinds of arguments that provide
evidence for knowledge claims. As we will see shortly, others are
about the degree of evidential support or reliability required for
knowledge. The Pyrrhonian skeptics argued that such disputes cannot be
settled.
If the dispute is to be settled rationally, there must be some means
for settling it. It would do no good of each side simply to assert its
position without argument. So how would a standard of knowledge (or
"criterion of truth," in the language of the Stoics) be defended? It
could only be defended by reference to some standard or other. If the
standard under dispute is invoked, then the question has been begged.
If another standard is appealed to, the question arises again, to be
answered either by circular reasoning or by appeal to yet another
standard. So either the process of invoking standards does not
terminate, or it ends in circular reasoning, and thus the dispute over
the standard cannot be settled rationally.
Immortalist
> John Larkin wrote:
> > So what you need is a system of observations and theories that all
> > hang together. So far, in the physical sciences, the Standard Model
> > does that very well, and nothing else does, so we go with that.
>
> > Sounds reasonable to me.
>
> Subject to improvement upon confirmed new observations that
> were not predicted by the standard model, of course.
>
Coherence theory: "An empirical belief is realatively true if and only
if it coheres with a system of other beliefs, which together form a
comprehensive account of reality."
Stephen J. Gould, the Harvard Paleontologist, offers this definition:
In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it
would be perverse to withhold provisional assent."
Succesfully Competitive Inductive Cogency:
Depends upon the evidential and conceptual ("context") of reasoning.
An inductive argument from evidence to hypothesis is inductively
cogent if and only if the hypothesis is that hypothesis which, of all
the competing hypothesis, has the greatest probability of being true
on the basis of the evidence. Thus, whether it is reasonable to accept
a hypothesis as true, if the statements of evidence are true, is
determined by whether that hypothesis is the most probable, on the
evidence, of all those with which it competes.
Philosophical Problems and Arguments: An Introduction
by James W. Cornman, Keith Lehrer, George Sotiros Pappas
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0872201244/
C) New Knowledge as Undefeated Justification:
A Revisionist Alternative to the Skeptic
and the Epistemist
Let us reflect on the dispute between the skeptic and the epistemist.
The skeptic has proven that our perceptual beliefs and corrigible
beliefs generally are not completely justified in any way that
guarantees the truth of those beliefs and excludes all chance of
error. Must we concede the day to the skeptic? The arguments_of the
skeptic are formidable. What have we learned from her? We have learned
that all justification runs some risk of error. Any justification for
what we believe is fallible. When we seek a justification for what we
believe, the best we can find will inevitably fall short of
guaranteeing the truth of what we believe. Justification can aim at
truth but cannot eliminate the risk of error. If our search for
knowledge is the quest for complete justification and a guarantee of
truth, we must admit our ignorance and concede the day to the skeptic.
There is another way, however.
We can revise our conception of knowledge. We may redefine knowledge
without committing the redefinist fallacy by admitting that our new
conception is a revision. We can construct a new conception of
knowledge and make this new knowledge the object of our philosophical
quest. How can we do this? We begin by admitting that our
justification for what we believe remains fallibIe and falls short of
a complete justification. We continue by noting that the fallible
justification we do have tor our beliefs, the sort appealed to by the
internalist, for example, may prove a trustworthy and reliable guide
to truth. Such justification may lead us to truth without being based
on any false premise or assumption. These reflections show us how to
revise our conception of knowledge. The revisionist takes fallible
justification rather than complete justification as the basis of
knowledge, and affirms that when fallible justification for our
beliefs does not depend on error and leads us to truth, we attain a
new kind of knowledge. This kind of knowledge based on fallible
justification becomes the legitimate object of philosophical and
scientific inquiry. In this way, revisionism transcends epistemism and
skepticism, combining the insights of both. We have not been able to
prove the skeptical hypotheses to be false. We believe, however, that
those hypotheses are fanciful, false constructions of the imagination,
rather than a truthful account of our world. We believe that our
perceptual beliefs about the objects we see, hear, and touch inform us
in a trustworthy way about the truth of those objects. We believe,
therefore, that beliefs that are justified by our internal standards
of justification, though those standards be fallible guides to truth,
are also externally connected with truth in a trustworthy and reliable
manner. We believe all this.
Suppose, in fact, that our fallible internal justification for our
perceptual beliefs and other corrigible beliefs does not rest on error
but instead leads us to truth in some trustworthy and reliable manner,
as the externalist maintains. Then a revised conception of knowledge
lies shining before us. One component is fallibilism, which we take
from the skeptic. Another component is internal justification, which
we take from the epistemist and the internalist. The final component,
which we take from the epistemist and the externalist, is that of
justification that is undefeated by error and that connects us with
truth in a trustworthy and reliable manner. It is easy to assemble the
components, as we have seen, to obtain a revised conception of
knowledge. Undefeated fallible justification is the new knowledge that
we seek.
It is the object of our inquiry. We cannot prove, as the skeptic has
taught us, that our justification is undefeated by error. We have
learned from her that some forms of error are invincible and beyond
detection. If some skeptical hypothesis of invincible deception is
true, then our justification is defeated and our perceptual beliefs
are errors. In that case, our situation is epistemically desperate,
and we must remain ignorant. If, however, we are right in thinking
that our perceptual beliefs will lead us to truth in a trustworthy
manner, as our internal standards of justification tell us, then our
fallible justification is undefeated, and we have new knowledge, If
there is an appropriate match between our beliefs about ourselves and
our perceptual relation to the external world, then internal
justification matches external justification, fallible justification
goes undefeated, and we obtain a new kind of knowledge.
We must, in conclusion, thank the skeptic for undermining our
dogmatism and our arrogance. She has shown us our fallibility. We may,
nevertheless, seek reasoning and justification that lead us to truth
in a reliable manner. The nobility of the goal of truth sustains the
undertaking. We enoble ourselves in seeking truth, even when we
realize that we may fail to obtain that noble objective. If the
justification we find does not rest on error and enables us to reach
the truth, we shall have attained our revised kind of knowledge. This
new knowledge is based on a fallible quest for truth without any
guarantee of sucess; we may attain it, though we cannot prove that we
will. To the skeptic who asks for proof that we shall succeed, we must
put our hands over our mouths in silence. We have no proof. We may,
however, invite her to join our quest for truth and the new kind of
knowledge we seek. Once we admit to the skeptic that she is right and
we have no guarantee of success, she, being a woman of insight and
character, who has, moreover, freed us of our dogmatism and arrogance,
may join as a sympathetic friend in our noble undertaking. We may say
to her, "Let us reason further with one another to find some fallible
justificafion to lead us to the truth in what interests us, concerning
freedom, mind, God and morals," and she, our brilliant adversary, will
become a friend to our philosophical undertaking. The modesty
resulting from a recognition of our own fallibility becomes us, opens
the road to inquiry and removes the roadblocks to understanding.
Revisionism combines the insights of skepticism and epistemism in
harmony.
Philosophical Problems and Arguments: An Introduction
by James W. Cornman, Keith Lehrer, George Sotiros Pappas
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0872201244/
> --
> Regards,
>
> John Popelish
zinnic
Stop rattling your cage! Accept your limitations and enjoy your banana!
John Larkin
<reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>How we can tell that we are not hallucinating. The braino argument is
>intended to establish that we can never tell this, even if we can
>sometimes tell that we are hallucinating. Consider some perceptual
>belief that you would maintain does not from hallucinations. what
>experiences guarantee this? Indeed, what experiences provide you with
>any evidence of it?
I have occasional hallucinations, which I rather enjoy. I wish I could
induce them voluntarily, since they're so cool, but no luck so far.
But there's no doubt that they are unreal, simply because I can still
think, and it's not hard to figure out that some gigantic colorful
object isn't really there. The other way I can tell is that during a
hallucination is the only time I have 20:20 vision.
Being an engineer trains one to always suspect observations, even
those of your own senses. In plain English, keep thinking.
Being able to think, if you are able to let yourself, cuts through a
lot of these philosophical dilemmas.
John
John Larkin
Mathematicians worked this out long ago. We agree to accept a few
basic axioms, and prove the rest within that context. The axioms
include some principles of logic that facilitate the "proof"
processes.
Works fine until somebody demonstrates that one of the axioms is
false, which doesn't happen much nowadays.
John
John Larkin
The way to dig a signal out of noise, and to account for imperfect
measurements, is to take a lot of data using a lot of instruments, and
signal average [1]. That happens when lots of people do experiments in
various ways and reach the same conclusions.
The latent danger is that people can be influenced by social pressure
to see what they expect, or to discount unusual observations as
experimental clitches; they let emotion distort their observations and
reasoning. So in other words (I think) he's saying that unforced
concensus leads to truth, but we need the occasional contrarian
maverick just in case we make a groupthink blunder.
John
[1] a lock-in amplifier is a remarkable device. It can dig a beautiful
signal out of a noise level that is thousands of times the signal
level, that totally obscures the signal by any usual means of
observation.
Rod Speed
> Stop rattling your cage!
Been having those pathetic little drug crazed fantasys long, child ?
Immortalist
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Aug 2008 23:47:32 -0700 (PDT), Immortalist
>
Isn't this just an attempt to create a foundationalist philosophy
based on a single, undeniable truth which you claim and argue to know
to be "fixed and assured". It's like you take Descartes' "I think,
therefore I am" "as the first principle of the philosophy I was
seeking", believing that this is the only truth which is necessary to
found a philosophy. His logical structure , however, relies on a
second postulate. He claims that "the capacity to judge correctly and
to distinguish the true from the false is naturally equal in all men".
This postulate is more fundamental to his logical structure than the
cogito because without it, he cannot escape the skepticism of his
foundationalist structure. You see what you brush off as the "given so
far" could be mistaken and therefore it is a lucky guess, the truth
you claim is based upon regularity.
---------------------------------
Cogito, Ergo Sum (The Circle Game) Descartes
THE CIRCLE GAME: "Descartes was a philosophical disaster!" Attacking
Descate's Cogito from within Descartes's own logical structure rather
than from a modern context.
Examining Descartes's philosophy from within its own logical
structure, we see that Descartes is unable to escape the necessity of
an observer in his attempt to find a foundation for his philosophy. As
I will show, he grounds his philosophy on the postulates of his
ability to discern truth from fiction and his own existence. Descartes
foundationalist philosophy fails, as a result, because neither the
infallibility and integrity of the observer nor the observer's
existence are certain.
Descartes attempts to create a foundationalist philosophy based on a
single, undeniable truth which he knows to be "fixed and assured". He
takes "I think, therefore I am" "as the first principle of the
philosophy I was seeking", believing that this is the only truth which
is necessary to found a philosophy. His logical structure , however,
relies on a second postulate. He claims that "the capacity to judge
correctly and to distinguish the true from the false is naturally
equal in all men". This postulate is more fundamental to his logical
structure than the cogito because without it, he cannot escape the
skepticism of his foundationalist structure.
Unpacking the significance of this postulate is somewhat of a
metaphysical thicket, but the effort is well rewarded. There is no
question that by thinking "I think, therefore I am", Descartes is
thinking. Beyond the statement of his existence, however, Descartes
cannot form any other conclusion unless he has the ability to discern
the truth of a thought-except the conclusion that he is, there is no
method to discern a true thought from a thought implanted into his
head by an other being unless he can make the distinction himself. If
he is to make any progress in his philosophy, he must rely on this
second postulate.
Even with this condition, Descartes's philosophy remains unstable. His
first postulate, the cogito, fails because it depends on the integrity
of the subject, the ego. Unlike a similar postulate of mathematics,
such as x+0=x, which does not depend on the integrity of the observer
in order to be true, Descartes's postulate is singularly tied to the
subject because the subject, the "I", is an integral part of the
statement. In the postulate, the "I" must be distinct since the cogito
makes no claims about the existence of anything outside the mind.
Descartes admits, however, that the mind is subject to failings caused
by the body:
"the mind depends so much on the temperament and on the disposition of
the organs of the body, that if it is possible to find some means of
rendering men as a whole wiser and more dexterous than they have been
hitherto, I believe it must be sought in medicine".
Furthermore, the mind cannot be sure of even its own state. Descartes
admits that "there are no conclusive signs by means of which one can
distinguish clearly between being awake and being asleep". Most
significantly, however, Descartes requires the fallibility of his mind
in order to prove the existence of God. Within his proof, Descartes
gives as an antecedent to his argument the observation that "my being
was not completely perfect" when it was created. But the infallible
ability to discern truth is, by nature of its indisputeability, a form
of perfection. He appears to be directly contradicting his second
postulate, the ability to discern truth from fiction. This logical
breakdown within Descartes's argument hints at a much greater problem,
however.
Descartes has a problem of authorship. That he exists and that he
conceives of his existence are synonymous according to the cogito
postulate. Furthermore, the existence of anything outside of his mind
depends on his own existence. He is assured of the existence of the
rest of the Universe by his perception of thinking of it. If the
observer stops observing himself, he ceases to exist, however. Thus
the reality of the Universe within Descartes's system depends on his
ability to conceive of it, which in turn requires that he exist. This
introduces a rather interesting problem in to his philosophy.
By the time he has completed his proof of the existence of God,
Descartes concludes that his own existence is dependent of the
existence of God. Because he creates a foundationalist philosophy,
Descartes must believe that the laws of the Universe are deriveable
from the cogito postulate. After attempting to establish the existence
of God, however, he admits that "I have observed certain laws which
God has so established in nature and of which he has impressed such
notions in our souls". According to his postulates, all that is in
Descartes's mind is the result of the fact that he thinks, yet here he
seems to be adding yet another subject to the set of actors upon which
his philosophy rests. The validity of the claims he has already made
are again questioned by further doubt over the author of existence:
"And who can give me the assurance that this God has not arranged that
there should be no earth, no heaven, no extended body, no figure, no
magnitude, or place, and that nevertheless I should have the
perception of all these things, and the persuasion that they do not
exist other than as I see them?"
Clearly, Descartes would not want to add dependency on a second
subject to his philosophy but he nonetheless accepts the notion that
not all existence can be attributed to his thoughts alone. God, he
qualifies, must also have authorship:
"if the objective reality of any one of my ideas is such that I know
clearly that it is not within me, either formally or eminently, and
that consequently I cannot myself be its cause, it follows necessarily
from this that I am not alone in the world, but that there is besides
some other being who exists, and who is the cause of this idea."
It is illogical that such a being, whose existence in the Universe is
dependent on the thoughts and observations of an observer could also
be the author of the same observer's thoughts. Surely Descartes
realized this but he seems to ignore its significance. He declares
"God is necessarily the author of my existence" and so falls into a
circular dependency, where his own existence is dependent on a God
whose existence in the Universe is dependent on Descartes's ability to
conceive of God and to determine the truth of such a perception.
Because the observer is thus permanently trapped within Descartes's
web of logic, the entire foundation of the structure is unsound.
With the foundation of Descartes carefully laid structure crumbling in
front of close examination, it appears, a philosophical failure. Such
an evaluation is made strong if it comes from within the logical
structure that Descartes presents. The job is easy, however, because
Descartes establishes such a dependent, recursive structure that his
entire fabrication falls under its own twisted weight.
http://www.stanford.edu/~bwark/papers/circle_game.html
> John
Immortalist
I agree, it kind of goes with the stereotype; "assume that A = X" But
I disagree with you idea that the higher level statements are
contradicted by new evidence, it seems that there are small changes
almost daily to sum assumed axioms.
Here Kant tries to show how adding two numbers is really a complex set
of entirely independent arguments.
V. IN ALL THEORETICAL SCIENCES OF REASON SYNTHETIC
A PRIORI JUDGMENTS ARE CONTAINED AS PRINCIPLES
1. All mathematical judgments, without exception, are synthetic. This
fact, though incontestably certain and in its consequences very
important, has hitherto escaped the notice of those who are engaged in
the analysis of human reason, and is, indeed, directly opposed to all
their conjectures. For as it was found that all mathematical
inferences proceed in accordance with the principle of contradiction
(which the nature of all apodeictic certainty requires), it was
supposed that the fundamental propositions of the science can
themselves be known to be true through that principle. This is an
erroneous view. For though a synthetic proposition can indeed be
discerned in accordance with the principle of contradiction, this can
only be if another synthetic proposition is presupposed, and if it can
then be apprehended as following from this other proposition; it can
never be so discerned in and by itself.
First of all, it has to be noted that mathematical propositions,
strictly so called, are always judgments a priori, not empirical;
because they carry with them necessity, which cannot be derived from
experience. If this be demurred to, I am willing to limit my statement
to pure mathematics, the very concept of which implies that it does
not contain empirical, but only pure a priori knowledge.
We might, indeed, at first suppose that the proposition 7 & 5 = 12 is
a merely analytic proposition, and follows by the principle of
contradiction from the concept of a sum of 7 and 5. But if we look
more closely we find that the concept of the sum of 7 and 5 contains
nothing save the union of the two numbers into one, and in this no
thought is being taken as to what that single number may be which
combines both.
The concept of 12 is by no means already thought in merely thinking
this union of 7 and 5; and I may analyse my concept of such a possible
sum as long as I please, still I shall never find the 12 in it. We
have to go outside these concepts, and call in the aid of the
intuition which corresponds to one of them, our five fingers, for
instance, or, as Segner does in his Arithmetic, five points, adding to
the concept of 7, unit by unit, the five given in intuition. For
starting with the number 7, and for the concept of 5 calling in the
aid of the fingers of my hand as intuition, I now add one by one to
the number 7 the units which I previously took together to form the
number, and with the aid of that figure [the hand] see the number 12
come into being. That 5 should be added to 7, I have indeed already
thought in the concept of a sum = 7 & 5, but not that this sum is
equivalent to the number 12. Arithmetical propositions are therefore
always synthetic. This is still more evident if we take larger
numbers. For it is then obvious that, however we might turn and twist
our concepts, we could never, by the mere analysis of them, and
without the aid of intuition, discover what [the number is that] is
the sum.
Just as little is any fundamental proposition of pure geometry
analytic. That the straight line between two points is the shortest,
is a synthetic proposition. For my concept of straight contains
nothing of quantity, but only of quality. The concept of the shortest
is wholly an addition, and cannot be derived, through any process of
analysis, from the concept of the straight line. Intuition, therefore,
must here be called in; only by its aid is the synthesis possible.
What here causes us commonly to believe that the predicate of such
apodeictic judgments is already contained in our concept, and that the
judgment is therefore analytic, is merely the ambiguous character of
the terms used. We are required to join in thought a certain predicate
to a given concept, and this necessity is inherent in the concepts
themselves. But the question is not what we ought to join in thought
to the given concept, but what we actually think in it, even if only
obscurely; and it is then manifest that, while the predicate is indeed
attached necessarily to the concept, it is so in virtue of an
intuition which must be added to the concept, not as thought in the
concept itself.
Some few fundamental propositions, presupposed by the geometrician,
are, indeed, really analytic, and rest on the principle of
contradiction. But, as identical propositions, they serve only as
links in the chain of method and not as principles; for instance, a =
a; the whole is equal to itself; or (a & b) a, that is, the whole is
greater than its part. And even these propositions, though they are
valid according to pure concepts, are only admitted in mathematics
because they can be exhibited in intuition.
2. Natural science (physics) contains a priori synthetic judgments as
principles. I need cite only two such judgments: that in all changes
of the material world the quantity of matter remains unchanged; and
that in all communication of motion, action and reaction must always
be equal. Both propositions, it is evident, are not only necessary,
and therefore in their origin a priori, but also synthetic. For in the
concept of matter I do not think its permanence, but only its presence
in the space which it occupies. I go outside and beyond the concept of
matter, joining to it a priori in thought something which I have not
thought in it. The proposition is not, therefore, analytic, but
synthetic, and yet is thought a priori; and so likewise are the other
propositions of the pure part of natural science.
3. Metaphysics, even if we look upon it as having hitherto failed in
all its endeavours, is yet, owing to the nature of human reason, a
quite indispensable science, and ought to contain a priori synthetic
knowledge. For its business is not merely to analyse concepts which we
make for ourselves a - priori of things, and thereby to clarify them
analytically, but to extend our a priori knowledge. And for this
purpose we must employ principles which add to the given concept
something that was not contained in it, and through a priori synthetic
judgments venture out so far that experience is quite unable to follow
us, as, for instance, in the proposition, that the world must have a
first beginning, and such like. Thus metaphysics consists, at least in
intention, entirely of a priori synthetic propositions.
http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Kant/cpr/
http://www.bright.net/~jclarke/kant/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Pure_Reason
John Larkin
<reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>Descartes attempts to create a foundationalist philosophy based on a
>single, undeniable truth which he knows to be "fixed and assured". He
>takes "I think, therefore I am" "as the first principle of the
>philosophy I was seeking", believing that this is the only truth which
>is necessary to found a philosophy. His logical structure , however,
>relies on a second postulate. He claims that "the capacity to judge
>correctly and to distinguish the true from the false is naturally
>equal in all men". This postulate is more fundamental to his logical
>structure than the cogito because without it, he cannot escape the
>skepticism of his foundationalist structure.
That's just silly. Some people have no talent for thinking, and a lot
of people who potentially have talent haven't practised enough to get
any good at it.
Learning to think is like learning most other things: have some good
instructors; do it a lot; get good feedback.
Descartes obviously didn't.
John
John Larkin
What blather. I bet Kant was bad at math.
John
m II
> What blather. I bet Kant was bad at math.
..and Godel couldn't Yodel..
mike
--
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
/ /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /
/ /\ \ /'Think Tanks Cleaned Cheap'/ /\ \/ /
/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/
Densa International©
For the OTHER two percent.
Due to the insane amount of spam and garbage,
I block all postings with a Gmail, Google Mail,
Google Groups or HOTMAIL address.
I also filter everything from a .cn server.
For solutions which may work for you, please check:
http://improve-usenet.org/
stan
I checked with my anvanced quantum artificial intelligence computer
about this and got an interesting reply. OK, actually I checked with
eliza through emacs. Any any rate I believe it's possible to help but
first theres a small question.
Why do you say that?
Immortalist
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Aug 2008 16:01:25 -0700 (PDT), Immortalist
>
But weren't you attempting to create a foundationalist philosophy
based on a single, undeniable truth, the giveness of sense data which
you somehow believe is "fixed and assured"? But if that were all
there was to this truth, there would be just the seemingness of sense
experience. In order to say anything else about it or interpret the
seemingness of sense wouldn't you need the capacity to judge correctly
and to distinguish the true from the false? These arguments are
separate from the sense data given.
Immortalist
a merely self-evident proposition, and follows by the principle of
contradiction from the concept of a sum of 7 and 5. But if we look
more closely we find that the concept of the sum of 7 and 5 contains
nothing save the union of the two numbers into one, and in this no
thought is being taken as to what that single number may be which
combines both.
The concept of 12 is by no means already thought in merely thinking
this union of 7 and 5; and I may analyse my concept of such a possible
sum as long as I please, still I shall never find the 12 in it. We
have to go outside these concepts, and call in the aid of the
intuition which corresponds to one of them, our five fingers, for
instance, or, as Segner does in his Arithmetic, five points, adding to
the concept of 7, unit by unit, the five given in intuition.
In other words, the summation is a separate group of arguments from
the adding together arguments, and sometimes it is better to say, "let
assume not to bugger Kant" that A=x for the sake of consistency, but
not certainty, no no.
Immortalist
Syncategorematicity is considered as a specific context-dependency.
After some historical remarks concerning the distinction between
categorematic and syncategorematic expressions, a proposal is made as
to how define syncategorematic expressions in the framework of Boolean
semantics. A definition of syncategorematicity based on the notion of
an atom of denotational algebra is proposed and various examples,
among which are categorially polyvalent modifiers and some vague
adjectives, are briefly discussed.
http://lola8.unideb.hu/resume/zuber.htm
The main sense of the word "syncategorematic" as applied to
expressions was roughly this semantic sense (see Kretzmann 1982, pp.
212 ff.). Buridan and other late medieval logicians proposed that
categorematic expressions constitute the "matter" of sentences while
the syncategorematic expressions constitute their "form" (see the text
quoted by Bocheński 1956, §26.11). (In a somewhat different, earlier,
grammatical sense of the word, syncategorematic expressions were said
to be those that cannot be used as subjects or predicates in
categorical propositions; see Kretzmann 1982, pp. 211-2.) The idea of
syncategorematicity is somewhat imprecise, but there are serious
doubts that it can serve to characterize the idea of a logical
expression, whatever this may be. Most prepositions and adverbs are
presumably syncategorematic, but they are also presumably non-logical
expressions. Conversely, predicates such as "are identical", "is
identical with itself", "is both identical and not identical with
itself", etc., which are resolutely treated as logical in recent
logic, are presumably categorematic. (They are of course categorematic
in the grammatical sense, in which prepositions and adverbs are
equally clearly syncategorematic.)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logical-truth/
In addition, an Italian scientist at T-13, Walter Fontana, was
developing what he called an "algorithmic chemistry," in which a form
of logical calculus provided a grammar under whose rules emergent
behavior might form.
-Artificial Life
Chaos has created special techniques of using computers and special
kinds of graphic images, pictures that capture a fantastic and
delicate structure underlying complexity. The new science has spawned
its own language, an elegant shop talk of fractals and bifurcations,
intermittencies and periodicities, folded-towel diffeorphisms and
smooth noodle maps. These are the new elements of motion, just as, in
traditional physics, quarks and gluons are the new elements of matter.
To some physicists chaos is a science of process rather than state, of
becoming rather than being.
-Chaos
ARTIFICIAL LIFE - The Quest for a New Creation
Steven Levy
Pantheon Books New York
Copyright (c) 1992 by Steven Levy
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679743898/
- Traveling Salesman, Tractability; Number of Operations Increases
Exponentially by Adding
So far we have looked at tears in the very fabric of mathematics.
There are, however, other, more practical, defects. It may be possible
for us to solve a problem in principle but, even with a computer,
impossible to do it in a realistic time frame. This is the issue of
algorithmic "complexity," as opposed to computability, and it concerns
the amount of time required to solve a problem using a Turing machine.
While the work of Godel, Turing, Church, and Chaitin highlighted the
issue of computability, algorithmic complexity is very much a workaday
issue. It turns out that among computable problems, certain classes
are much more difficult to solve than others. The number of
calculations, expressed in terms such as "floating point" operations
(the number of operations performed by an algorithm), indicates the
amount of work needed to solve a given problem.
The algorithms used to describe computable problems can be divided
into two classes, based on the length of time it takes to find the
solution to a problem as a function of some number N that measures its
size. The good news is for problems that axe polynomial (i.e., an
algebraic power of N, e.g., N squared, N cubed, etc.), when they are
said to be tractable--the length of time required to crack them does
not become unbounded as the size increases. Problems solvable in
polynomial time are said to be in the class P. Mathematicians and
computer scientists blanch when the time required to solve a problem
increases in an exponential fashion (something to the power of N).
These problems are called intractable because the time required to
solve them rapidly spirals out of control. Even the raw power of a
computer has little effect. These problems, which are not solvable in
polynomial time, are said to be in the class NP.
Probably the most famous example of an NP problem is the traveling
salesman problem. This is the mathematical expression of the dilemma
faced by a salesman who has to visit N cities once only in such a way
as to minimize the total distance traveled: he has a penny-pinching
boss and has to keep fuel costs as low as possible.
The problem is easy to formulate but, try as they might, no computer
scientist or mathematician has come up with a well-behaved
deterministic algorithm (i.e., one that is not random and allows only
one outcome for any given set of circumstances) that can find
solutions to it on a computer in polynomial time. For a handful of
cities and roads it may be easy to determine the salesman's solution
because not that many options exist. If the number of cities is five,
say, a computer could easily calculate the twelve possibilities. With
ten cities, there are 181,440 possibilities. However, even with the
number-crunching power of the fastest available machine, the time
required to solve the problem rapidly spirals out of control. For just
twenty-five cities the number of possible journeys is so immense that
a computer evaluating a million possibilities per second would take
9.8 billion years--around two-thirds of the age of the universe--to
search through them all.
A large number of other real-world problems are known to lie in this
category, many of them concerned with similar optimization problems.
For the owner of a printed circuit-board factory, for example, the
function that needs to be maximized is manufacturing efficiency. For a
pharmaceutical company, the function that must be maximized is the
snugness of the fit of a drug molecule within a target protein found
in the body. Frequently, elegant analytical mathematics is unable to
provide us with a simple way of locating these optima, since hard
optimization tasks are intractable (NP) problems.
But how do we know for sure that a given problem belongs in the NP
class? Just as schoolchildren will always maintain that many
mathematical problems are impossible to solve, the labeling of a
problem as NP could say more about a mathematician's incompetence than
anything about the problem itself. In fact, this question is one of
the foremost open problems of contemporary mathematics and computer
science. Little progress has been made to prove the conjecture that NP
problems possess no solutions available by conventional--deterministic--
algorithms in polynomial time. However, even without such a proof, at
the very least the belief (supported by algorithmic experimentation)
that a problem is of the NP variety implies that a significant
breakthrough will be needed to solve it.
For those who want to reproduce the workings of the world within
computers, these NP problems are at first sight rather depressing.
Remarkably, however, as we will discuss in later chapters, nature has
provided us with tools to tackle them.
Frontiers of Complexity - The Search for Order in a Chaotic World
Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield - 1995
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0449910814/
John Larkin
No, I attempt to design and sell electronic circuits. Since it almost
always works, I must understand something close to the way the world
operates.
>But if that were all
>there was to this truth, there would be just the seemingness of sense
>experience. In order to say anything else about it or interpret the
>seemingness of sense wouldn't you need the capacity to judge correctly
>and to distinguish the true from the false? These arguments are
>separate from the sense data given.
If the stuff works, and unless my entire universe is delusional (all
those numbers on the test equipment, all those purchase orders... all
illusions?) then I must be pretty close to right. And when I'm wrong,
I find out fast and fix it.
Really, life's not all that difficult. Just do what works.
John
John Larkin
Michael A. Terrell
That's his problem. His life doesn't work, so he has to spin silly
scenatios.
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There are two kinds of people on this earth:
The crazy, and the insane.
The first sign of insanity is denying that you're crazy.
John Larkin
I can't say it's a problem for him (but it's pretty definitely a
problem for Brett) but yes, people who aren't successful in dealing
with reality tend to go on and question the validity of that reality.
What they might consider questioning is their own learning skills.
Immort seems interested in issues of organization and dynamics, as am
I. He seems to have researched it better; I spend too much time
reading Aviation Week and Microwave Journal. He sure uses a lot more
words.
John
Michael A. Terrell
John Larkin wrote:
>
> I can't say it's a problem for him (but it's pretty definitely a
> problem for Brett) but yes, people who aren't successful in dealing
> with reality tend to go on and question the validity of that reality.
> What they might consider questioning is their own learning skills.
>
> Immort seems interested in issues of organization and dynamics, as am
> I. He seems to have researched it better; I spend too much time
> reading Aviation Week and Microwave Journal. He sure uses a lot more
> words.
I find that people who run on and on like him tend to not have much to
sat, but try to hide it. I wonder if he was on fire if he would yell
"HELP ME", or write a 500+ line message about what the fire felt like,
and how his skin and flesh could burn so easily?
Publius
news:9a03b4t1u52fao7ak...@4ax.com:
>>But weren't you attempting to create a foundationalist philosophy
>>based on a single, undeniable truth, the giveness of sense data which
>>you somehow believe is "fixed and assured"?
>
>
> No, I attempt to design and sell electronic circuits. Since it almost
> always works, I must understand something close to the way the world
> operates.
Non-sequitur.
John Larkin
Ah, we hear from another philosopher.
John
John Larkin
>quoted by Bocheñski 1956, §26.11). (In a somewhat different, earlier,
You're kidding, right?
John